


There Are Worse Ways to Make Friends

by Alexicon



Series: marvel works [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Bad Puns, Breaking and Entering, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4758581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexicon/pseuds/Alexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becca Barnes breaks into her brother's apartment through his window. She finds out later that it is not her brother's apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Worse Ways to Make Friends

**Author's Note:**

> IT TOOK ME LIKE 30 MINUTES BUT I DID IT I FOUND THE PROMPT I USED FOR THIS
>
>> [My neighbour’s sister got the wrong house number and barged into my apartment AU](http://sam-sour-wolf.tumblr.com/post/96879594159/ok-but-have-you-considered)   
> 

Steve isn’t immediately freaked out when he sees the person-shaped lump under the afghan on his dumpy old sofa. He’s got a few friends who have keys to his apartment, and while they usually aren’t there when he isn’t, there are always special occasions. It’s when he doesn’t recognize the backpack on the ground and its many, many decorative pins that he starts to worry.

“Um, hello?” he says, mentally debating whether he should be going for his baseball bat or something. The lump twitches in an oddly petulant manner and he decides against it. “Who are you?”

Half a face emerges, dark eyes staring from between blanket folds.

“I’m Becca Barnes,” the person states, as if he should’ve been able to recognize her from the five square inches of face she’s shown so far. “Are you one of my brother’s friends?”

Steve blinks at her. “I guess that depends on who exactly your brother is, Becca. I’m Steve Rogers and I’ve never heard of you.”

She rolls her eyes, exposing a few more slivers of her face. “ _Bucky_ Barnes? You know, the guy who lives here? Don’t tell me you broke in.”

“No, that’s all you,” Steve mutters. “I live here. There’s no Bucky in my apartment, I swear to you.”

“Wait, what?” she asks, sitting up quickly and letting the hood of her afghan-cocoon fall to her shoulders. “No Barneses? Not even a roommate? His real name’s James, you might know him by that.”

“The only Barnes who has ever been in my apartment is the one on my sofa wrapped up in my blanket right now.”

“Oh, damn it,” she curses. “And here I thought that my dumbass brother would be the only one who’d ever have those dorky star stickers stuck to his bedroom window.”

“Hey,” Steve says, offended. “You break into my house, you insult my window stickers-- wait a second, you came in through my bedroom window? This is the fourth floor! You could’ve fallen and broken something!”

“Oh, _please_ ,” scoffs Becca. “The hardest part was jimmying the lock on your window, and that took all of seven seconds. By the way, you ought to get more secure locks on your windows.”

“Oh my God,” Steve says helplessly. “Okay, does anyone know where you are?”

She shoots him a suspicious look. “Yes. Everyone knows where I am. I’m constantly transmitting my location to an undisclosed number of anonymous acquaintances, and if my corpse shows up somewhere they’ll know exactly where to look.”

“I meant for someone to pick you up or something. Or, wait, I guess your brother lives in the building, right? Do you know what number or can you only identify apartments by their windows?” Steve asks, raising his eyebrows.

Becca groans out a long, heartfelt sound. “Yeah, I know what number. Doesn’t matter, he won’t be home for another couple of hours and he’s got the only keys.”

“That wasn’t particularly clever of him,” Steve replies, baffled. “Were you _supposed_ to enter through his window? Is that a thing now?”

Becca looks sheepish and glances away. “He, uh, _might_ not have known I was coming. It was sort of a last-minute decision.”

“Last-minute as in...”

“As in, my parents think I’m staying over at a friend’s, but I had to get some time away from said friend before I murdered one or both of us.”

Steve frowns and perches on the nearest arm of the sofa. Becca scoots backward to the other end, probably so she can see his face without straining her neck.

“That seems pretty drastic,” he muses. “Was your friend bullying you?”

Becca laughs, an oddly cracked sound in an otherwise quiet apartment. “Nah, I’m good. If anything, I’m the one bullying her. It’s just, she’s so _frustrating_ about this guy she’s dating!”

“Ah,” says Steve knowingly. “No good for her, is he?”

“He’s only the biggest jerk in our school. You know, no big deal.”

“And she doesn’t see it.”

“Of course not! She thinks the _sun_ shines out of his ass. I mean, why take the word of your best friend for eight years over the charms of some guy you’ve known for two months?”

“Of course,” Steve sighs. Then he squints at her sidelong. “What breed of asshole is he exactly?”

“Womanizing creep of a senior who thinks he can get away with bullying freshmen, hitting on anybody who’s got a bit of T and A, and convincing stupid sophomores to date his undeserving ass,” Becca lists off casually, like she’s reading a description of this guy from the dictionary.

“What a creep,” Steve agrees, making a face. “Do you need me to rough him up a little? Scare him away, or keep him gentlemanly toward your friend?”

Becca gives him an annoyed look. “If I wanted him beat up, I could do it myself. I’ve had self-defense training since I was a kid.”

“I don’t doubt that, Miss Barnes,” Steve says patiently, wisely neglecting to add that as far as he’s concerned, she is _still_ a kid. She looks maybe fourteen or fifteen. “But I could back you up, at least. I could be your muscle.”

She snorts out a laugh. “All right, it would be pretty hilarious to show up with you at my back, like you’re some sort of bodyguard or something,” she confesses. “But, dude, we just met. And, uh, I hate to remind you of this, ‘cause I don’t want you to press charges or anything, but I _kinda_ broke into your apartment? Remember that?”

“Let’s call that a friendly misunderstanding,” Steve suggests. “Anyway, I’m not going to press charges. You didn’t steal anything, right?”

She winces. “I may have drank one of your Coke bottles from the fridge? It was a moment of weakness. I’m sorry.”

Steve laughs. “It’s all good. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed.” This was a lie. Steve would have noticed if there was a missing bottle which he hadn’t removed. He’s a little more observant than your average person; it’s just the way he’s wired.

“To be honest, I should have realized this wasn’t Bucky’s apartment just from that,” admits Becca sheepishly. “He hates Coke. Says it’s too sweet or something, which is funny because he loves those, like, cream and caramel sugary monstrosities you get at Starbucks.”

“Shame on you for forgetting what your brother’s refrigerator looks like,” scolds Steve jokingly. “Siblings should know these things about each other. It’s in the sibling handbook, isn’t it?”

Becca gasps dramatically. “How did you know about the sibling handbook?” she demands. “Do you have any?”

“Nope,” Steve replies smugly, swiping his hair out of his face. “I’ve got people on the inside. Spy siblings. Spyblings, if you will.”

Becca stares at him for a good three seconds before cracking up. “Yeah, okay,” she decides. “I’m going to keep you. I’d tell my brother I have a new friend he can’t share, but I suspect he’d be more interested in being boyfriends with you, which, no. No offense.”

“None taken,” says Steve gamely. “Do I have any choice in this friendship, by the by?”

“Sure,” Becca shrugs nonchalantly. “Do you want to pay for the pizza I’m about to order or shall I?”

Steve lets out a sigh, concealing his smile poorly. “I guess I’ll pay. You wanna tell your brother where you are, at least? I’m not so cool with you and me and the pizza guy being the only people on earth who know where you are.”

“That,” she declares, “is a wonderful idea. You order while I do that. Get me cheese pizza, please. Or, pepperoni’s fine, but no weird toppings today.”

“‘Today’?” Steve repeats as she trots off, phone in her hand. “Okay, then.”

The scene Bucky finds when Becca opens the door is this: There is a blond man (in great shape, which Bucky would admire more if they were in a different setting) lying on the floor next to a half-eaten slice of pizza on a pile of napkins; a whiteboard with a game of Hangman on it which has a truly astonishing number of blank spaces and most of an unsettlingly detailed hanged man drawn on it; his sister’s backpack open with various books and papers strewn across the floor; a nest of blankets which Bucky knows from experience had been Becca’s seat before getting the door; and a plate with two pieces of untouched pizza sitting neatly on the end table.

“That’s for you,” Becca says, noticing Bucky’s gaze.

“What?” gapes Bucky, caught off guard. This was not the scene he had expected when she had called him and said that she was at one of his neighbor’s apartments waiting for him to get home. At the very least, he had expected her to be with one of the three or four kindly old ladies who seemed to be omnipresent in this building. (They held a bingo night in the basement on Thursday nights. He wasn’t sure if the landlady had approved this, but Bucky joined in every so often while he was waiting for his laundry to finish.) “What’s for me?”

“The pizza, Bucky. _Food_ ,” she says patiently. “For you to _eat_.”

“Right,” he replies, slightly strangled. “Looks delicious.”

“And the food looks good too, right, Bucky?” Becca teases slyly.

Bucky laughs nervously. “What? Yeah. Delicious.”

“You said that already, brother mine.”

“Shut up!” he hisses. “Did you _plan_ this?”

Becca only smirks. The hot guy, who has been hovering uncomfortably just far enough away not to hear them whisper, sees his chance and swoops in with his hand extended.

“Hi, I’m Steve,” he says. “Your sister took a wrong turn or two and ended up at my apartment rather than yours. I’m glad you could find it.”

Bucky huffs. “My sense of direction has always been better than hers, that’s for sure. I’m amazed she made it to the building at all, but I guess that’s what her phone is good for.”

“Shut up, Bucky,” Becca orders, eyes shooting daggers at him. “You can’t make me look worse in front of Steve, he already thinks I’m a juvenile delinquent.”

“What,” Bucky starts to say, but Steve talks over him.

“Aw, no, that’s not true. It was an honest mistake.”

It is an interesting fact not often observed that the Barnes siblings sound nearly _exactly_ the same when they scoff in disbelief.

“All right, this I gotta hear,” Bucky says, sitting on the floor without waiting for an invitation. “What is this ‘honest mistake’, and should I be calling a lawyer for her?”

Okay, Bucky really isn’t all that apprehensive until he sees Becca look down at her twisting hands ashamedly. He loses all humor and leans forward.

“Seriously, Becca, are you okay? Did you do something big?”

“It’s fine!” Steve placates, glancing between them worriedly. “She just, ah, chose an alternative means of entry, while I happened to be out.” It takes a moment for this to process; then Bucky stands up abruptly and twists so he can’t see either one of them.

“Jesus Christ,” he groans at the wall, rubbing at his face with both hands. “You broke into his apartment?”

“In my defense, his bedroom looked like exactly the kind of place you’d love to live in,” Becca says weakly, pulling her lips into some approximation of a hopeful smile.

“I’m giving you a key,” Bucky decides. “God, Becca, you could’ve gotten in serious trouble. You’re lucky Steve here’s an actual angel.”

“I just did what anyone reasonable would’ve done,” Steve protests, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry to say this, Steve,” says Becca mock-solemnly. “I really do like you, but if we’re being honest, no reasonable person would come in, see the person who broke into their apartment, and comfort them about their misguided friend and her asshole boyfriend rather than call the police. That is reserved for the ranks of sainthood. Congratulations, you’ve been canonized.”

“I might be wrong, but I’m _pretty_ sure that’s not how it works, your Holiness,” Steve says with heavy irony.

“None of this changes how stupid it was to break into his apartment, Becca,” Bucky interjects, waving his hands between them to stop their banter. “You should’ve at least called me when you decided to come over. Then I might have known to leave work earlier.”

“Yeah, well, Steve’s an idiot too! I coulda been an axe murderer and he’d be dead! Five minutes after finding out someone broke into his apartment and he’s offering to fight someone for me!”

Bucky pauses to stare at Steve, who’s bright red by now.

“Are you really trying to pass his wrath off onto me?” Steve mutters, which is ignored by both of them.

“I will be a voice of reason here if I have to be,” Bucky announces. “You’re both idiots. _Lucky_ me. I’ll let you know when to expect the letter of complaint.”

“Aw, Bucky! Not another letter, c’mon!” Becca whines, because she has had _experience_ with her brother’s passive-aggressive letters, but Steve, who is still yet blessed with sweet, naïve ignorance, gets up and pushes the plate with two pizza slices into Bucky’s hands.

“You two might as well stay for a while. We’ve got pizza, an unfinished game of Hangman, and Netflix if we’re desperate. Also, how do you both feel about oatmeal cookies?”

Bucky isn’t actually sure that Steve Rogers is a real person rather than some strange, heavenly hallucination somehow shared by him and Becca. After hearing that yes, they both enjoy oatmeal cookies, Steve mixes some up _from scratch, in front of them_ , and bakes them. All told, it takes maybe twenty minutes. And they’re _good_. (Neither Bucky nor Becca can resist trying to get at them while they’re still hot. It’s a family failing, and Steve laughs at them as they nurse their stung fingers.)

“I feel like a lost little bird, finding out that there’s another perfect nest just like home twenty trees away from my old one,” Becca confides to Bucky.

He looks at her strangely. “That was an odd metaphor, but I get it,” he says. “He feels kinda like home, doesn’t he?”

“That is literally what I just said,” Becca pronounces sharply. Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but I said it in real English rather than some weird poetical nonsense, so I win.”

“Don’t you _even_ front with me, Mr. High School Poetry Journal Contest Winner Three Years in a Row.”

“Enacting Chapter Five of the sibling handbook, are you?” Steve interrupts to ask, and Becca’s expression changes from ‘annoyed’ to ‘giggling’.

“How do you already have inside jokes?” Bucky asks confusedly, glancing between their grinning faces. “You’ve known each other for maybe an hour or two. Breaking and entering is not a beginning to a great friendship.”

“Maybe you’ve just been doing it wrong, Bucky,” Becca taunts, stealing another cookie from the cooling rack. Steve swats at her hand with an oven mitt.

Bucky sighs and says, “Crime is a terrible way to make friends, Becca.”

“Nah, it’s just an _interesting_ way to make friends,” Steve responds absently, inspecting the mixing bowl to see if there’s enough for a second batch. There is. “For instance, my friend Tony almost killed me when we first met. Actually, so did Thor. _Actually_ , so did my other friend Clint. All in different ways, though, or I’d be worried.”

“That’s a disturbing trend, you should be worried anyway,” Bucky observes. He and Becca are blinking in shock at each other. Steve watches for a few seconds, determines that they’re not communicating in Morse code, and turns back to the cookie sheet.

“Well, my other friend Natasha has promised that if I die through less-than-natural means, she’ll avenge me,” he explains with a shrug. “And she’s kinda scary, so I believe her.”

“Wait,” Bucky says, narrowing his eyes. “Not Natasha Romanov.”

“You know her?”

“Steve!” Becca almost shouts. “You didn’t say you knew Nat. She’s great.”

“Should we have checked our contact lists against each other?” Steve asks wryly. “I think that would’ve been a bit strange.”

Becca narrows her eyes at him. “Yes, we should have,” she says, not backing down. “And speaking of contacts, give me your phone. I’m putting my number in.”

“Hang on, I’ve got to unlock it,” says Steve, and the two Barneses watch in fascination as he wrestles his phone from his pocket, punches in his passcode, and opens the Contacts app, all while holding a tray of cookie dough balls perfectly level in his other hand.

“Impressive,” Bucky comments as Becca busies herself with Steve’s phone.

Steve closes the oven door and flashes him a grin. “That’s nothing,” he says. “You should see me juggle. I’m pretty good at that hand-eye coordination thing.”

Becca’s right there, so Bucky doesn’t automatically blurt out the creepy innuendo resting on the tip of his tongue about ball handling. This makes him insanely grateful for his sister’s presence.

“You seem pretty good with your hands,” is what comes out instead, which, granted, is not _much_ better, but is at least a little more subtle. Becca does not seem to think so, as she pauses in her typing (what is she writing on his phone, an autobiography?) to laugh silently at him. Steve ducks his head bashfully.

“I’m an artist, so I guess I have to be,” he says. Bucky can’t tell if he’s brushing off the flirtation or if he’s just a little oblivious. Obviously, Bucky’s hoping for the latter.

“Are you an artist? I’d love to see some of your work sometime,” Bucky flirts automatically, then pauses to narrow his eyes at Steve. “Wait, are you the one who keeps washing the towels with paint on them?”

Becca’s eyes widen and dart between Steve’s abashed face and Bucky’s suspicious one.

“Uh, yeah, that’s me,” Steve acknowledges. “It hasn’t been messing up the washing machine, has it? I was pretty sure they wouldn’t, or I would have just thrown them out.”

“No, but you’ve left them in a few times so I had to move them along,” Bucky tells him, then shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter, anyway. I just wanted to know if you’d ever tried soaking your towels in vinegar and then brushing at them to get the paint off. I left a note a few times, but I guess you never got them.”

Becca looks absolutely delighted to hear this, not that the other two notice. Bucky’s staring at Steve determinedly and Steve is gobsmacked, mouth hanging open and eyes unfocused. She snaps a quick picture of each of them-- and then one with both of them in the same shot when neither seem to notice the fake shutter sound-- before sending them all to her own phone. Becca’s going to use them as contact photos.

“I can’t say that I have,” Steve manages faintly, and clears his throat to return his voice to its normal octave. “Um, and I have to say, I’ve never gotten advice on the care and keeping of towels from anyone but my mother.”

“Well, Bucky’s basically a mom anyway,” Becca needles her brother, who shoots a glare at her.

“Thanks, Becca. What exactly does that even mean?” Bucky challenges. “What does a mom act like? Keep in mind that I may or may not be recording you to show to Mom later. We’ll see how she reacts.”

Becca turns her nose up at him and doesn’t answer.

“It’s getting late, though,” Bucky sighs. “Becca’s going to need to get up early so she can get to school on time. Are you okay cleaning this up?”

“Sure,” Steve shrugs, inspecting the kitchen area. “Nothing beats that time I had to make a birthday cake the day of the party because the place hadn’t gotten the order. I’ll be fine.”

“All right. Thanks so much for watching her and for feeding us, and for being such a saint. You’re amazing, I really owe you one,” says Bucky, slowly drifting toward the door and gesturing for Becca to follow him.

“Of course you don’t, I was happy to help,” Steve replies. “Oh, just wait a second, I wanted to bag up these cookies for you. It’ll only take a moment, and Becca needs to pick up all her stuff anyway.”

Bucky winces sympathetically, remembering how the contents of Becca’s backpack had been scattered all across the floor.

“Uh, right. Good idea,” Becca says, and flits off to the living room, leaving the two of them in the kitchen.

“Do you need me to hold that ziplock or something?” Bucky asks, feeling a little useless just standing there as Steve struggles to manipulate both the cooling rack and the bag at the same time.

“That would be great, thanks.” Steve favors Bucky with a stunningly bright smile and hands him the baggie. They make short work of shifting the cookies into the bag and Bucky stuffs the bag into his back pocket, for lack of a better place.

“They’re very good,” Bucky compliments awkwardly, trying to remember if he had said ‘thank you’ when Steve had first offered them cookies. (He had, but it might have been missed in the long litany of ‘no, you don’t have to do that’ from both Becca and Bucky.)

Steve’s smile somehow widens as he says, “Thank you! Yeah, I found the recipe on the internet. Mom never liked oatmeal cookies, so she never learned how to make ‘em. I used to trade my applesauce for my friend’s oatmeal raisin cookie every lunch on Wednesdays in grade school. Sharon, my friend, she hated raisins so much.”

“And yet she liked applesauce,” Bucky shakes his head. “Some people have no taste.”

Steve squints at him. “I can’t tell if you like raisins and applesauce or if you’re hating on them, with that comment.”

Bucky laughs. “No, I like both fine. I’m just saying, they aren’t exactly polar opposites.”

“If you say so,” Steve replies dubiously. “I honestly have never thought they were similar.”

“Well, you know, they’re both fruits, and juicy and stuff,” Bucky says, feeling more and more stupid by the second.

“Uh, okay.” Steve shrugs. “Anyway, I didn’t have any raisins, so your oatmeal cookies are purely raisin-free. I don’t usually use them much, and they’re not on the shopping list unless I need raisins for something specific.”

“That’s okay, Steve. They were still hair-raisin’ good,” Bucky says seriously. Steve looks at him wide-eyed for second before starting to giggle.

“I have never in my _entire_ life heard the phrase ‘hair-raising good’.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I just made that up for the sake of the pun,” Bucky admits ruefully. “Hey, you laughed, though.”

“I have bad taste,” says Steve. “Haven’t you heard that puns are the lowest form of humor?”

Bucky looks out the window and frowns theatrically. “It can’t be the lowest, we’re on the second highest floor.”

“Stop,” Steve orders, grinning. “You are causing me actual physical pain. It hurts my soul to hear such terrible jokes.”

“That’s a sign that your soul is starving for ‘em,” Bucky says knowledgeably. “Don’t worry, I can provide. I am an endless well of bad jokes and terrible puns.”

“I’m getting that. Is that on your business card? Bucky Barnes, a bad joke for every situation,” Steve proclaims like he’s the voice actor for an ad.

“Actually, I use James for professional situations, so it would be James Barnes, bad jokes for all occasions, or something like that. I dunno, I kind of like it. I might have some cards made up for that.”

“Let me know if you need my artistic input,” Steve says. “I don’t usually do designs without being paid for it, but in this case I think I can make an exception, since it was my idea in the first place.”

“Sounds good,” Bucky replies. “I’ll have some done for you, too. Steve, uh--”

“Rogers.”

“Steve Rogers, the artist with terrible taste. Or, no, Steve Rogers, Tasteless Artist. I like that.”

“Okay, yeah, I like that, too,” Steve tells him. “But you know what would be even funnier?”

“What?”

“If I were a food critic.”

“Steve Rogers, Tasteless Food Critic,” Bucky announces with a grand flourish, and cracks up. “Oh, God, that’s awful!”

“Thanks, I tried,” says Steve.

“No, no no no, that was such a _tasteless_ joke,” Bucky nudges him and grins. “I’m _hungry_ for more, actually.”

“They’re the only way to get some _flavor_ in your personality, don’t you know.”

Bucky squawks and nearly falls over laughing.

“What the hell is going _on_ in here?” Becca asks incredulously from the doorway. They both straighten quickly, looking like nothing so much as a pair of misbehaving schoolboys trying to act innocent.

“Nothing’s going on,” Bucky hurries to say. “Just packing up the cookies.”

“I hope they’ll be _raisin_ -ably good,” Steve says guilelessly, blinking wide eyes at the other two.

“No worries,” Bucky replies with a bright smile. “If I don’t _relish_ them, I’ll just give them to some other unsuspecting human _bean_.”

“You two have serious problems,” Becca informs them both.

“Don’t be such a _sourpatch, kid_!” Steve shouts gleefully.

“I’m leaving,” Becca says. “Bucky, either come with me or give me your keys.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Bucky grumbles, still grinning at Steve, and then follows her to the door.

“It was nice to meet you both!” Steve says as they leave.

They’re halfway down the hallway when Bucky stops and says, “Shit, I was going to get his number. Can I grab it from you?”

“What? No! It’s not polite to give out other people’s numbers without their say-so!”

“I can’t go back there now, it’d be embarrassing!”

Becca stares at him for almost a full minute before cracking a wicked smirk and saying, “I don’t give a _fig_ about your embarrassment, Bucky. Go get your _date_.”

“Oh my God,” Bucky says, and runs back down the hallway.

The door’s already opening when he knocks, and his (slightly louder than he intended) greeting, “I want to go on a date with you!” is at the same time as Steve’s “Wait, Bucky, can I have your number?”

There’s a video later, which Becca shows everyone she can get to stand still long enough (especially if they ask how the two met), where Steve and Bucky exchange phones and smile dopily at each other and Becca laughs obnoxiously behind the camera.

“For the record, this was my doing,” she murmurs to the microphone at the end of the video. Neither Steve nor Bucky can really argue with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lexiconallie.tumblr.com)!


End file.
